Day 08 - Hospital Room

Today was a great day of shooting. I admit when C showed Andrew and I the shot list for today when we got home last night, I was dubious at best. Maybe it was the exhaustion setting in, or this cold I'm fighting off --really wish we would've found some Airborne the other night-- but I didn't think we could shoot all of the scenes we needed to while chasing the sunlight. It's been our biggest nemesis so far.

Luckily Andrew suggested blocking out all the light from the large windows entirely and using our light kits to simulate sun and moonlight whenever we needed it. I was still dubious as setting up and tweaking lights usually took up big chunks of time which is what usually put us behind schedule, and now we've got twice as many different lighting setups as previous days. However, if we were going to accomplish it, blocking out the windows was our best shot at getting all of our shots.

It was another early morning. At C's studio at 6:30 to load up equipment so we could be on set by our 7am call time.

"Gimmee the dynamite first, we'll put the nitro on top of them."

Today and tomorrow we'll be shooting all of the hospital room scenes in the movie. The thing about hospital rooms in the 1940's is that they pretty much looked like plain white rooms, nothing like the high tech rooms you see in today's hospitals. So C found a conference room at the old university building on College Avenue that will be perfect. AND it's just a short drive from the U of R campus.

Say, not bad! You can almost picture polio patients in here.

After a Kali-supplied breakfast, the crew immediately got to work on blocking out the windows with sheets of tar paper.

Today Trevor was back with us AND we had Bernie on set too. We're totally going to rock this set with both of these guys with us!

Bye bye sunshine!

Meanwhile, I drove the dogs over to Lili's house and left them in her backyard. Thanks again Lili, we sure do appreciate it!

While the room was getting transformed Clara and Candace were busy transforming Don and Geri Hack, the woman playing one of the nurse roles. Candace by the way has a full-time job. She swung by on her way to work to get the actors squared away. You're so awesome, Candace!

Don't flinch, Geri, or you might get hurt.

Besides the conference room where we're shooting the scenes, we also got access to the larger break room right next door. That's were we had makeup, wardrobe and craft services set up. It made things so much easier not having to run across grass fields and dirt roads to get to the set!

There's a really modern looking thermostat throwing everything off on the wall just above the hospital bed. Kristine fired up the hot glue gun and got to work on a fake paper cup holder to cover it up. Genius!

Check to make sure it's not set to Full Auto when you're ready to use the glue gun.

Wayne Slinn was also on set today, playing another role as Mr. Nordgren, the mental patient who wets himself. Wayne also played the minister in the Tom/Katja Wedding scene back on our first day at the Sukanen Museum. Hopefully no movie goers will notice it's the same actor.

Wayne waits for his scene while D enjoys a nutrious length of Red Rope licorice.

Soon the windows were all blocked out and we were just about set to start lighting.

Andrew says, "In your face, sun! Go ahead and set, see if we care!"

Andrew and Trevor and Bernie did a great job lighting the room. When you look through the video camera, the room really looks like it's daytime!

Dauminique admiring the lighting scheme.

C works with the actors as the crew makes some adjustments to the lights.

Hey does that bed look familiar? It's the same one we used out at Estlin on Day 2, fence planks, sandbags, apple boxes, futon and all!

If your bed is uncomfortable, help yourself to a fake paper cup! Aaaa! It's the hospital from Hell!

Besides the thermostat on the wall, we had to cover up other modern fixtures that were showing up on screen, like the bright red exit sign out in the hallway.

I hope there ain't no fire, or we're all screwed!

Geri and Don did a great job on this scene. Again, C's work with the actors during the workshops this summer really paid off.

"You're having tapioca again, Mr. Sukanen. And you'll LIKE IT!"

It was time for Mr. Nordgren's scene. Clara did a great job making Wayne look terrible. Here's the before shot... HA! Just kidding.

The makeup is laced with ebola, HIV and a hint of leprosy.

I had the honor of putting on the finishing touches on Wayne's costume, Mr. Nordgren's pivotal pee stain. The first application wasn't quite right. "No no," I said, "That ain't no pee stain! Gimmee that!"

Luckily I bottle all my urine for just such an occasion.

All this artistry and preparation I think helped evoke a more genuine performance from our actor.

"Uuueeeeeyyyuuunh unh uunh."

By then it was time for lunch. Kali made a spicy pasta dish which was great. So far we were only slightly behind schedule. It helps when you don't have to break down equipment and haul it to another set in between scenes!

Andrew really enjoys the pasta! I mean REALLY enjoys it.

After lunch it was time to shoot the Old Vic Visits Tom scene with our friend, Brian Dueck. We had a bit of a scare when Brian thought we were shooting at the U of R campus instead of the old university building. When he was late for his call time C and D got real worried. I checked our home voicemail and Brian had left a message saying he was over at the U of R looking for us. Doh! So C sent Kevin over to find him. Oddly enough, while Kevin was heading out to his truck, he spotted Brian crossing the street. Apparently, Brian had driven up to the old university building and spotted our parked cars but didn't know exactly where to go. Hee hee. So Kevin brought him back and all was right in the world again.

"You know, they don't look it but these apple boxes are quite comfortable!"

After lunch Andrew got to work on the next camera set up.

Is that as high as it will go?

Most of the day Don spent lying in the hospital bed. Doesn't mean he wasn't working hard! But after freezing his butt off, having dirt thrown on him, walking barefoot in the prickly grass and having blood smeared on him, it was nice to give him a break for once. Don's a great sport, of course.

Don takes a peak at the last page to see how the movie ends.

This scene takes place when Tom and Vic are in their 60's so Clara had to age Brian quite a bit. This was another great scene. Both Brian and Don are wonderful, talented actors and they did an awesome job. I'm telling you, when this scene hits the big screen there won't be a dry eye in the house.

Vic breaks the bad news to Tom: "Your Field & Tractor subscription ran out."

Since we didn't have Jacquie on set with us anymore, some of us had to double up on duties. Kristine was on script duty for a while.

"The line is 'No, you're wrong Vic, Colonel Mustard did it in Conservatory with candlestick."

The next shots were a little tricky as Mama is supposed to appear to Tom as a ghost while Vic is still in the room. C works out the blocking.

"Once you say your line that's when Mama steps up and hits you with the folding chair, okay?"

Everything was working out great. Andrew's idea about blocking out the windows and creating our own light meant we weren't at the mercy of the daylight that was coming into the room. We got to work at our own pace which gave C a lot more freedom to get great performances from her actors.

It's the martini shot!

With that we were wrapped for the day! YAY! While we were shooting the last scenes, Kevin ran out and got a case of beer. Excellent! We all got to sit down, wind down and relax a bit.

Cheers!

Sadly, it was the first time during the shoot we got to all sit and have a beer together. We're usually packing up equipment by moonlight and headlights of our cars at this point.

It was a good day of shooting!

The best part of shooting here today and tomorrow is there's no packing up equipment and hauling it back to C's studio! All we have to do is leave everything where it is, lock the doors and we're done for the night! Aaah! It was only 10pm so we decided to all head over to the Cathedral Freehouse and get some dinner.

Unfortunately Brian couldn't go. He's got a couple kids who start school tomorrow so he's got to be up early and pack their lunches and send them off. He lives in Swift Current which is like a 3 hour drive. Yikes! So we had to say goodbye, he's wrapped until the Fall shoot. We had a blast having him on set.

See you in November, kiddo!

We all caravaned over to the Freehouse where it was HOPPIN'! Don't know what could be going on on a Wednesday night but the place was packed full of college kids like it was Friday. It's rare enough to find something open past 10pm in Regina, let alone a place jumpin'. We grabbed a table way in the back where it was kind'a quiet.

Dauminique, C and Trevor deciding on what to have for dinner.

Clara and Andrew listen carefully to the beer list.

We had a great time over dinner. We've all been going 100 mph (or 160 kph) every hour of the day so it was nice to be able to relax and chat with everyone. What a great bunch of people. I'm definitely going to miss everyone when this is all over.

Soon it was time to go. Besides, more and more people were coming in AND there was a huge crowd waiting to get in like it was Club 54 or something. Crazy!

We got to check out Trevor's bicycle which has got to be the coolest bike in Regina, if not in Saskatchewan. I wish I had a better picture of it.

Checkin' out Trevor's ride outside the Freehouse.

Today went off great! It'll be another busy day tomorrow, even though C assures us it'll be a light day, and I'm looking forward to it.

Until Next time... adventure!

R-

Day 07 - C's Studio & Museum

Today was supposed to be a light day. We're now past the halfway point of the shoot but also past the most hectic days. Part of the reason things were so tightly scheduled was for the actors' and extras' more convenient time. Folks are more available during the weekend (especially the actors from out of town) than on weekdays, plus the Snowbirds don't fly on weekends. As C says, if she had a real budget and could pay people for their time, she could just tell everyone they had to be at a certain place at a certain time and they'd have to wait however long she needed them. But of course, there is no real budget and C and Dauminique did a great job working around everyone's busy schedules. Kudos again.

Anyway, today was supposed to be a half day for us, with only a studio shoot happening in the morning and then getting the hospital set ready at the old university building in the afternoon. But as I mentioned yesterday (or was that two days ago? --really losing sense of time), we ran out of time to shoot the second half of the Finnish Boss scene. So instead of trying to shoot it on our buffer day (Saturday), we adjusted the schedule to shoot the opening workbench shot this morning, reschedule the Tom at His Workbench scenes for the Fall shoot in November, and then go back to the Sukanen Museum to shoot the Finnish Boss Office scene this afternoon.

So the plan was we'd all meet at C's studio to load up any lighting equipment and power cords we'd need at the museum, then Andrew and I would stay behind and shoot the opening workbench sequence while C and Dauminique and Kevin and Kristine would head to the museum to start set dressing and lighting the Finnish boss's office. Sounds like a plan.

C clears away some of the craft service snacks for the workbench sequence.

Oh the other thing too is that we aren't going to have Trevor with us today. Today was his day off which he needed to finish a proposal for a project that's due by the end of the month. He's a film maker too and is working on some cool sounding projects. Good luck with that, Trevor, you're definitely an important and valued member of our team and having you and your dry sense of humor around sure is fun. We'll miss having you on set today!

The good news is Bernie will be filling in for Trevor. Bernie's in his last year in getting his film degree at the U of R. He's pretty busy with his own projects but he's able to come aboard for a few days and help us out, which is a huge relief for Andrew.

"What's the difference between a reflector and a C-stand again? Ha ha - just kidding dude."

This sequence is going to be part of the opening sequence of C's movie, a slow dolly shot across a workbench. It's supposed to exist within an imaginary, ethereal space in Tom's mind, so C simply painted some of the walls of her studio for the backgrounds.

Workbench - before. That ain't pasta, that's sawdust.

Kristine gets to work dressing the workbench with various props she made as well as old woodworking tools borrowed from Chris, the carpenter who made the ship's wheel. Chris conveniently works in the woodshop just down the hall and has a collection of very old tools.

Remember to leave room for the Finnish water bong.

After some tweaking and a little sprinkle of sawdust, the workbench was ready for its close up. Cooool.

Hmm. It's kind'a messy in Tom's imagination.

C had borrowed a wheelchair from the university's theater department to use as a makeshift dolly. Andrew and I secured the camera and tripod to it with sandbags and clamps. Check it out.

Sure why not.

It was a bit of a challenge to get a nice smooth, even dolly across the workbench. Even though we swept it, the concrete floor still had dried up lumps of paint drops on it, and I'm not too sure the wheels on the wheelchair were completely smooth either. We tried a few different approaches.

I hear this is how James Cameron shot half of Titanic.

Not all of them were successful. Eventually however, we got a couple takes that we think C will like. So we packed everything up, locked up her studio and headed back to the Sukanen Museum.

When we arrived the set dressing team was still working on the set. We no longer had Jackie and the use of her trailer, but luckily Kevin still had his dad's big truck he borrowed to haul stuff around.

At least there aren't any parking meters out here.

We used the municipal records building at the museum for the Finnish boss's office.

"What we need is a big photo of the Skipper from Gilligan's Island."

As you can imagine, it's tough finding maritime themed props, pictures and knick-knacks out here in the prairie. Kristine had to come up with pictures of ships off of the internet to cover some of the prairie themed memorabilia in the office. I made that big blueprint of a Finnish steam/sailing ship in Illustrator and Kevin printed it out for us. The model ship we borrowed from one of the other buildings in the museum.

Voila! Instant Finnish shipyard office!

The powder blue walls look atrocious I know, but C will desaturate or sepia tone these scenes of Tom's memories, so the blue won't look blue at all. She did a couple quick tests in Photoshop and it actually looks pretty good!

Oh, and we brought the pups with us again. I think they rather enjoy film making.

They're rehearsing for our upcoming A Dingo's Got My Baby! movie.

The scene went off pretty well. At least we weren't chasing the sunset, although we did shoot right up until sundown again. Gerry Coulter, who plays young Tom's shipyard boss in Finland, did a good job once C was able to calm him down. And Don was amazing as usual. He's so good. When it was all over, I think we were all glad we shot this today and not on Saturday.

You can almost smell the barnacles!

Andrew says "It's a wrap!"

One relatively light scene and we were done. C, Andrew and Trevor tried to get some B-roll of the amazing moonrise, running across the highway and through a couple of ditches to get the shot. I'm not exactly sure how it went, I stayed behind to help pack up the equipment.

Loading up one last time at the Sukanen. For real this time!

The next two days will be interesting. We'll be at only one set on both days which will be easier, but we've got to shoot a crap load of shots within those two days. The room we're using at the old university building has a class scheduled the next morning after we finish, so we've gotta get everthing shot or it might have to wait until the Fall shoot.

Stay tuned!

Until next time... adventure!

R-

Day 06 - Sukanen Museum

What a difference 10 hours of sleep makes! How refreshing.

Today will be our last of four days shooting at the Sukanen Museum. It's been great shooting there despite the plane and traffic noise and having to run hundreds of feet of extension cords to where ever we're shooting. Paul's been wonderful, the sets are looking great and really giving C high production value.

As much fun as it's been though, I'm looking forward to the two days we'll be at the old university building in Regina. One set, indoors and no Snowbirds flying over. AND it's 5 minutes up Broad Street from C's studio, no more 45 minute drives home from Moose Jaw at 2am.

Today we started by meeting at C's studio as usual to load up equipment. We didn't have to be at the museum until 1 though so it was a little more relaxed than usual. Once we got in, Kali had lunch waiting for us.

Andrew and Trevor strategize about the shoot during lunch.

At the production meeting, C assures us that today will be a "light day." Only two scenes to shoot. Huh, maybe it will be a light day.

During the meeting, Paul pulled up to show off his jalopy.

"Any of you city slickers wanna drag for pinks?"

After the meeting, we headed over to the field in front of the grandstand where the threshing machine was set up. This is an authentic 100-year old threshing machine that the volunteers at the museum maintain. They fire it up once a year during their annual Threshing Bee which is next weekend. Paul arranged for them to run it for us so C could use it in her film. Awesome.

Some of the gentlemen who were background talent yesterday at the Post Threshing Party scene returned today for the Threshing Demo scene.

C directs the extras on what she wants them to do in this scene.

One of the coolest surprises we got was a visit from Helen Sukanen, who was married to the late Elmer Sukanen, the real Tom's nephew. C got to interview Elmer a few times and learned many stories and annecdotes about Tom, which she incorporated into the script. Elmer passed away this Spring and we weren't sure if Helen would make it out to see us. But she did and we were really glad to see her again. As you can imagine, it was a very emotional reunion for Helen and C. Helen was accompanied by Lloyd and Edith Redden and their friend, Marge Ingolls. Edith and Marge were the first people C met when she travelled from San Francisco to Macrorie back in 2003 to do research for the film. Lloyd drove C out to Tom's homestead the next day which was an amazing experience for C, as you can imagine.

Lloyd, Don, Helen, Marge and Edith.

A little Sisu trivia: Mark's character, Lloyd the store owner, is named after Lloyd Redden and Lili's character Marge Ingolls is named after... you guessed it, Marge Ingolls herself.

Soon the thresher was ready to go and it was time to start shooting. This was another one of C's dream shots that she hoped to get for her movie, so we were all really excited that we were going to get shots of the thresher working. There was a slight chance of showers today, which would've nixed the thresher altogether. Luckily the rain stayed away and we got some awesome shots!

Turn it up to 11!

Clara hard at work touching up the talent's mugs.

First we got wide, establishing shots of the farmers arriving at the threshing demonstration.

Step right up gentlemen, and take a gander at the future of farming!

Getting a lot of useable sounds of the machinery working was important. C will use a lot of it as background sound under the actor's voices during the editing phase.

Closer! Go ahead and get right under there Trevor!

One shot I boarded called for a camera angle from inside the thresher looking out at Tom. We weren't sure if it'd be possible but Paul assured us it was safe to crawl under there with the camera while the machine was going. Uh... okay Andrew, give it a shot!

Try as we might, we just couldn't get Andrew maimed or mangled.

"I wanna go home!"

The shots of the thresher working turned out great. It's going to be another wonderful scene in this whole amazing movie.

Will that thing also separate cans from plastics?

We then got tight shots of the tractor starting up for B-roll. It was tough getting it going however. According to the operators, once it gets going and gets hot, it's a bear to restart.

Isn't there a remote control you can use or something?

But they managed to do it and we got some usable footage. Even though we'd gotten all of the shots we needed, Paul and his crew of threshers had to go ahead and thresh the rest of the wheat. So Andrew and I got a couple shots of the farmers supposedly celebrating the threshing machine that Tom designed and built. It was a totally impromptu shot and wasn't boarded at all but it might turn out to be useful during editing.

I think Trevor may have taken this picture. That's why he's on sound.

The next thing we needed was reverse shots of the farmers' reactions to the thresher. But we couldn't shoot the modern corrigated buildings in the background so we had to swing them around so there was just an empty grass field behind them. Things were getting frantic again as the sun was setting fast and we were losing our light. Again.

"So what we have here is what is known as a threshing mach-- HEY! Where'd it go!"

Here's a shot of those annoying Snowbirds, Canada's equivalent to the Blue Angels. They're home base is located a few miles north of the museum and although they don't fly during the weekends, they were buzzing around all day today.

Drat you Snowbirds!

They stop flying at 6pm so from about 5:30 they come around to land at their base every 2 or 3 minutes. Errrr!

We got all of the shots we needed of the extras, but we still hadn't gotten close-ups of Gerry who plays the threshing machine salesman. Unfortunately, the sun went down and got too dark to shoot. Andrew and Trevor tried lighting the scene but it just wasn't working.

"Salesman gets a sunburn scene, take 66!"

After a few futile takes of the salesman in the dark, C determined we'd just have to get the shot another day. So we wrapped the threshing machine set and headed over to the old Diefenbaker homestead (or a replica of it as we found out later) for the Mama/Dami Bedtime scene.

Try not to trigger the pyrotechnics under the bed.

It took a little while to light the scene, and while Andrew and Trevor were working on that some of us grabbed a quick bite for dinner. Luckily Kristine and Kevin got the room set dressed while we were finishing up with the threshing machine.

Zach's character is Dami, Tom when he was a boy in Finland. This scene is when his mama, played by Megan Fries, sings him a Kalevala story before bed.

The later it got the better Zach was at acting sleepy.

We started shooting at about 9 and Zach didn't wrap until after 11pm. You could tell he was starting to get tired there toward the end. Once he was done, C wrapped him and let him go home. Good job, Zach!

Of course, we still had Megan's close-ups to shoot, so we threw Dauminique into the bed again as Zach's stand in.

"WAAAAAA! It's that crazy woman again! What'd you do with my baby!"

Megan wrapped at about 1am so we started loading everything up for the drive back. It had started raining while we were shooting so packing up was a bit on the soggy side.

Hey, I think we've got a tail light out.

It was sad to think our shoot at the museum is over. We had a great time and got a lot of really amazing shots. We'll all miss Paul too, who's been great at letting us pretty much have free reign of the place and getting us whatever we needed. Thanks so much, Paul!

Actually, we do still have to shoot the second half of the Finnish Boss scene. C's thinking about doing that on our emergency buffer day on Saturday. So we'll be back.

One of the hassles of shooting so late is the university is locked up by the time we get back. So C has to walk over to the security office and have them let us in to unload. But they're cool about it, they aren't like Nazi's about it or anything.

This is starting to get old.

All of this hectic running around along with the lack of sleep and going from hot, movie light-filled rooms to cold exteriors has been reeking havoc on our immune systems. So on our way home we stopped off at a 24-hour Shopper's Drug Mart to pick up some Airborne.

Sorry Andrew, I grabbed the last box of adult diapers.

Do you have anything that will treat Lack of Golden Hour Light Syndrome?

Here's a Fun Fact: They don't have Airborne in Canada! Bwuuuh? That totally sucks. So we went home empty handed.

Calltime is at 9am tomorrow. Good news is we'll be shooting in C's studio, no driving to Moose Jaw. Yay! Another "light" day of shooting!

Until next time... adventure!

R-